City & FFP | 2020/21 Accounts released | Revenues of £569.8m, £2.4m profit (p 2395)

[dctid]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

I can honestly say I have no clue what is going on, nor what is going to happen. I was convinced UEFA would have to back down and it was all brinkmanship, but I just don't know now and this rumoured "announcement" after the game today really worries me.

But to all of those saying "we should sue the bastards", do bear in mind guys we might very well not win.

First off, layman's logic would lead you to believe our fine should be lower than PSG's and therefore should get the fine reduced if we go to CAS. But UEFA will doubtless have calculated our "sin" as being worse than PSG's after whatever adjustments they have made to our numbers. They must have some vaguely justifiable basis for our fine being higher, other than the fact that they don't like us. I can't see how we've failed at all personally, but if UEFA's audit firm has deemed certain transactions invalid and then our pre-2010 contracts cannot be excluded, then our losses for FFP purposes could be enormous. So the higher fine than PSG may be "justified" and could easily stick.

Second, if it goes all the way to the ECJ, we could lose there too. I don't know how many lawyers post on here, but I'll bet there are none who are specialists in European Law and how it applies to sport. Let alone how many are professors of European Law at Oxford University. Yet the man who has those qualifications says we "might" win in court, but we might not. It is no slam dunk. EUFA would not have introduced the rules without extensive legal consultation by similar experts who obviously believe it's watertight, or they would have drafted it differently. We may have a case, but the judges may deem that although the rules would normally contravene Employment or other laws, nevertheless they will allow them because in their view, they are justified in the context of the stated aims of FFP. There is precident for that decision being made in the past.

I am going to try to forget about this as best I can and concentrate on this afternoon. It's all too worrying and depressing at a time when we should be nothing but excited :-(

The difficulty is whatever the PSG books look like or how UEFA have imterpreted them will not be available to CAS or ourselves they will almost certainly be subjec to a NDA so any arguments we make cannot be based upon PSG got this fine so we should get less because of yada yada yada because that information is not available

Personally i depends upon what they have pulled us on - if it for arguments sake the Ethiad deal then its going to be a problem for the forseeable future than we have to fight if its something that is maybe a one off them we will probably have to swallow the fine

 

[Marvin]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Dipped in and out of this thread since it started, whats become clear is that no-one has a clue about anything to do with how UEFA determine whether or not we have breached FFP, our deals are fair or what our punishments can be. A few weeks ago it was all 'we cant fail FFP' then it changed to 'it will be a slap on the wrists' and now its 'our lawyers will wipe the floor with them'. Lets face it, this is real and it is going to seriously affect any plans we had this summer and any plans we have going forward. We are not going to break even anytime soon despite what some people are imagining, as a result we are going to be easy targets for UEFA and the likes of Wenger in his quest to try and keep the status quo. It stinks of corruption and unfairness but its here and we need to face up to it.

2010/2011 -£197m
2011/2012 -£98.7m
2012/2013 -£51.6m

The trend alone suggests what for 2013/14?

The fact is we spent about £80m and will break even for this season. What we do in the future is not an issue.

 

[SteveinBeds]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

I have no specialist knowledge of this field but I have been involved in the run up to a number of commercial law cases going to the English and European Courts. Invariably, the leading counsel advising the parties will tell them that if you consider that almost all of the facts are on your side, there is still a 15-20% chance of the case being decided against you.

In a case such as this, involving new rules, the application of accounting standards, regular meetings throughout a period to discuss the issue and complex transfer pricing aspects, the chance of a counter-intuitive decision must be higher than 20%.

All of the above applies to both parties, which is why, if I was advising either side, I would urge them to explore the extent to which any "middle ground" can be found to settle.

From City's perspective (especially all of us fans!) it will be hard to accept any penalty which is not derisory but there are, sadly, some prices worth paying even if our gut feel tells us not.

As a final point, all of the the above applies to the conniving UEFA top dogs (how polite and mild mannered I am being today!) which means that they will be being advised to find some middle ground.

 

[Damocles]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Dipped in and out of this thread since it started, whats become clear is that no-one has a clue about anything to do with how UEFA determine whether or not we have breached FFP, our deals are fair or what our punishments can be. A few weeks ago it was all 'we cant fail FFP' then it changed to 'it will be a slap on the wrists' and now its 'our lawyers will wipe the floor with them'. Lets face it, this is real and it is going to seriously affect any plans we had this summer and any plans we have going forward. We are not going to break even anytime soon despite what some people are imagining, as a result we are going to be easy targets for UEFA and the likes of Wenger in his quest to try and keep the status quo. It stinks of corruption and unfairness but its here and we need to face up to it.

2010/2011 -£197m
2011/2012 -£98.7m
2012/2013 -£51.6m

The trend alone suggests what for 2013/14?

The fact is we spent about £80m and will break even for this season. What we do in the future is not an issue.

The guy is obviously on the WUM. He's suggesting our CEO has lied about our future financial results.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

I have no specialist knowledge of this field but I have been involved in the run up to a number of commercial law cases going to the English and European Courts. Invariably, the leading counsel advising the parties will tell them that if you consider that almost all of the facts are on your side, there is still a 15-20% chance of the case being decided against you.

In a case such as this, involving new rules, the application of accounting standards, regular meetings throughout a period to discuss the issue and complex transfer pricing aspects, the chance of a counter-intuitive decision must be higher than 20%.

All of the above applies to both parties, which is why, if I was advising either side, I would urge them to explore the extent to which any "middle ground" can be found to settle.

From City's perspective (especially all of us fans!) it will be hard to accept any penalty which is not derisory but there are, sadly, some prices worth paying even if our gut feel tells us not.

As a final point, all of the the above applies to the conniving UEFA top dogs (how polite and mild mannered I am being today!) which means that they will be being advised to find some middle ground.

Good post that mate. But if UEFA is being run by a tyrannical despot, or indeed just a plain idiot, then they may not heed such advice.

 

[Burtonblue]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

The whole thing is rotten to the core.
Back out of the CL next year and fight the bastards in the courts to get FFP scrapped together. Nail the PL by a 20 point margin in the process. Win the case against UEFA and sue them for loss of CL revenue bringing Platini and his chronies to their knees.
Just the way it makes me feel right now...

 

[George Hannah]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

I have no specialist knowledge of this field but I have been involved in the run up to a number of commercial law cases going to the English and European Courts. Invariably, the leading counsel advising the parties will tell them that if you consider that almost all of the facts are on your side, there is still a 15-20% chance of the case being decided against you.

In a case such as this, involving new rules, the application of accounting standards, regular meetings throughout a period to discuss the issue and complex transfer pricing aspects, the chance of a counter-intuitive decision must be higher than 20%.

All of the above applies to both parties, which is why, if I was advising either side, I would urge them to explore the extent to which any "middle ground" can be found to settle.

From City's perspective (especially all of us fans!) it will be hard to accept any penalty which is not derisory but there are, sadly, some prices worth paying even if our gut feel tells us not.

As a final point, all of the the above applies to the conniving UEFA top dogs (how polite and mild mannered I am being today!) which means that they will be being advised to find some middle ground.

Good post that mate. But if UEFA is being run by a tyrannical despot, or indeed just a plain idiot, then they may not heed such advice.

they've got their 'best mates' Portugese puppets lined up heading the "Chamber" and the EU Competition Commision - both of the view that sport isn't an industry and so outside laws to stop unfair competition.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

I have no specialist knowledge of this field but I have been involved in the run up to a number of commercial law cases going to the English and European Courts. Invariably, the leading counsel advising the parties will tell them that if you consider that almost all of the facts are on your side, there is still a 15-20% chance of the case being decided against you.

In a case such as this, involving new rules, the application of accounting standards, regular meetings throughout a period to discuss the issue and complex transfer pricing aspects, the chance of a counter-intuitive decision must be higher than 20%.

All of the above applies to both parties, which is why, if I was advising either side, I would urge them to explore the extent to which any "middle ground" can be found to settle.

From City's perspective (especially all of us fans!) it will be hard to accept any penalty which is not derisory but there are, sadly, some prices worth paying even if our gut feel tells us not.

As a final point, all of the the above applies to the conniving UEFA top dogs (how polite and mild mannered I am being today!) which means that they will be being advised to find some middle ground.

Good post that mate. But if UEFA is being run by a tyrannical despot, or indeed just a plain idiot, then they may not heed such advice.

No it isn't, it's being run by a bloke who wants to keep his job & has been asked by a cartel of influential big businesses, to do them a favour by shitting on a competitor.

 

[George Hannah]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

What do you lawyers know about Charlie Flint - the token Englishman on the CFCB Adjudicary Chamber ?

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.blackstonechambers.com/people/barristers/charles_flint_qc.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.blackstonechambers.com/peopl ... nt_qc.html</a>

 

[hgblue]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Dipped in and out of this thread since it started, whats become clear is that no-one has a clue about anything to do with how UEFA determine whether or not we have breached FFP, our deals are fair or what our punishments can be. A few weeks ago it was all 'we cant fail FFP' then it changed to 'it will be a slap on the wrists' and now its 'our lawyers will wipe the floor with them'. Lets face it, this is real and it is going to seriously affect any plans we had this summer and any plans we have going forward. We are not going to break even anytime soon despite what some people are imagining, as a result we are going to be easy targets for UEFA and the likes of Wenger in his quest to try and keep the status quo. It stinks of corruption and unfairness but its here and we need to face up to it.

Well said. Although it's wrong, we need need to Dave up to what's going to happen. We simply will not win this.

The people who actually look into this thing say different.

People just don't seem to understand what's going on here. We haven't even lodged an appeal to UEFA yet

Why would we appeal the sanction if our problem is with the basis upon which the sanction has been applied? I believe we've given UEFA the opportunity to keep us on board and FFP in place and UEFA have thrown this opportunity back in our face. I believe effectively calling our owner a liar and a cheat is not something that can be negotiated away, and we will have no interest in haggling over the punishment.